Ed Reiter clarified that the NLG website is correct and it's my plaque that's wrong. I did, in fact, receive an Extraordinary Merit award for my Coin Collecting Albums, Volume 2 book, but my plaque was incorrectly engraved. In fact, I'm thinking of having it slabbed as a rare error variety.

Another excellent issue as usual. I was reading the story about the Olympic Medal winners yesterday and lo and behold I came across the name of Shaul Ladany. I said Wow! I know him.

Shaul Ladany, among his many, many accomplishments, is also of collector of coins, medals, tokens, stamps and the like. I had known about some of his life and how he was the first to notify outside sources of the attack in Munich. But I had not known that he was a winner of the Pierre de Coubertin Medal. He also still holds many age-group "walking" records including a few in New Jersey when he was a professor at Princeton. I believe he still competes!

I asked him if it was ok to let me know about one of his many hobbies. He not only gave me permission to pass it on, he wanted to become a subscriber.

I bought a late 1700s Russian Kopek recently and was amazed at how much thicker it was than the Groat of the 1400s. Here is a shot that will be in El Numiscadero -- with fingers volunteered by my lovely wife Maureen.

That banknote with Edison writing on it seems like a Short-Snorter note to me.

I'm a member of the Weston (Missouri) Historical Museum, which I joined many years ago when I thought that the M. A. Abrahams tokens reading Weston were from there and not, as it turned out, from Westport. I receive their quarterly newsletter, Museum Musings.

In the July-August-September issue, p. 4, is the following item:

The Weston Chronicle dated May 26, 1900 reported "Several years ago, Sheriff John Dillingham's first wife promised their five sons that if they would not use tobacco or strong drink until they were twenty-one years of age, she would give each the sum of $100.00 as a gift on his twenty-first birthday. Wednesday, William Dillingham reached his majority and as he had faithfully kept the promise, his father, Sheriff Dillingham, presented him with five $20.00 gold pieces."

Wow!